


a song of the sea

by sungmemoonstruck



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:39:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungmemoonstruck/pseuds/sungmemoonstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eponine is a writer and Cosette is an artist, and they drift toward each other across ocean waves in a coffee shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a song of the sea

(Chapter One, she thinks.) Brown eyes meet the seas of blue across the room. Éponine wants to drown in their waves, sinking beneath their currents till all that’s in her lungs is seawater and the sunlight reflecting across the ocean. She blinks away the salt in her eyes just as the girl crosses the room, sitting herself down at Éponine’s table without a word. The tide starts to come in.

“May I ask you a question?” says the sea, her reflecting sunlight in those golden curls tucked beneath a purple hat.

Éponine nods.

“Would you let me paint you?”

“… What?” The word come out raspier than she means, as if sand has filled her throat. Éponine tries to clear it away with a sip of coffee, but still it remains, hiding her voice beneath dunes along the shore.

(Chapter Two, perhaps.) “I know it’s not the kind of thing strangers normally say to one another when they first meet.” The waves rumble, lightly, in time with her laughter. Éponine laughs a little, too, but only because they’re not strangers—they’ve sat at their respective tables in this coffee shop at this exact time every Wednesday, getting caught in each other’s oceans and beaches from across the room till the sun begins to set and the owners begin to clean up. Till then, Éponine writes about the rush of water between her fingers, and she notices the strokes of charcoal the girl makes in her tattered sketchpad, only pausing to glance up at Éponine’s corner every few minutes. They each know the curves of the other’s jaw, the quirk of each other’s lips, the sounds of each other’s sighs and what coffee the other person drinks when the shop employees call out orders. Strangers don’t know such intimate details. Strangers wouldn’t bother.

The sea continues, “But, you see, you’re lovely. You have such _beautiful_ eyes, and your hands”—she brushes her fingers across Éponine’s—“they have such color in them.”

“My hands have color?” Éponine narrows her eyes, smiling slightly as she examines her hands. “They don’t look that colorful to me.”

“You’re a writer, aren’t you? I see you writing every time you come in. And you never bring in a computer, only a notebook and a pen.” Her index finger caresses the back of Éponine’s hand, over a scribble of ink that Éponine had made earlier to see if her pen had been working. “People don’t think about how much is put into words. They never see the color within sentences. Your hands are stained with rainbows.”

It’s then that the sea really does fill her lungs, because for a second, she doesn’t think she can breathe. Her fingers curl slightly around the girl’s, whose own hands are visibly covered in faint reds and blues and purple smears of paint and ink stains.

(Chapter Three starts somewhere along here, but by now she’s lost track.) “I’ll let you paint me, only if you let me use you to bring color to my words.” Éponine’s head fills with stories of paint-splattered bed sheets and the lazy drag of pens across bare skin, two damsels in anything but distress as their oceans and winds wrack with storms and thunder, breaking apart the ships of men who dare try to cross their path. She itches for her pen, wanting to mark her tales across every inch of the masterpiece of this girl’s canvas, but she’s been patient for this long, and she’ll wait just a little while longer. “Call me Éponine.”

The sea’s smile glitters in the bright sky. “I’m Cosette.”

(Epilogue.) The name drifts over Éponine’s ears like the breeze on sails. She breathes in that saltwater air and grins, ready for the tide to pull her in.


End file.
